My Sister’s Keeper is the novel-turned-film in which Cameron Diaz plays the mother of two children who conceives a genetically engineered third child to save her daughter from leukimia. When her first daughter, Kate (Sofia Vassilieva) is diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia at the age of two, she and her husband conceive Sophia (Abigail Breslin) through in vitro fertilization to be a perfect match and help keep Kate alive. 

Diaz, Breslin and Vassilieva shared their emotional experience in making a film that deals with such delicate, controversial issues and how each of them would never judge any family going through this type of situation.

Q: This is the first time you’re playing a mom, who is also a mom to teenagers. Was there any hesitation or concern about going that route?

Diaz: I didn’t really think about it. I really don’t think about this stuff too hard. I just find my way through it. Nick Cassavetes (director) brought me this script, and it was a wonderful script. I didn’t really even think about the fact that I would be playing a mother. I didn’t think about it, in terms of what it meant to my career. I thought of what it meant to the story, and who this woman was and what her life experience was and what was happening in front of her. I didn’t think, ‘Oh, my God, if I play a mother, and a mother of teenagers, how is this going to affect my career?’ It didn’t even phase me.

Q: Since you have a sister yourself, how did you feel when you read this script?       

Diaz: Family is so important. What drew all of us to this story was the family, and the stories of each of these characters. Neither Sofia nor Abigail has a sister.

Breslin: In the movie, my character and Sofia’s character, Kate, are sisters, and my character loves her sister so much that she’s willing to go to any lengths to help her. That’s what I liked about the movie. You think that this family is all in this big problem, which they are, but they all love each other, even though they’re going through this whole thing.

Diaz: Reading this script, I think we all related to the fact that there isn’t anything that you wouldn’t give someone that you love that deeply. You do whatever it takes to keep that person alive. I think that that’s something that spoke to most of us, for this film, and what I think is so effective, in the film.

Q: What are you grateful for, in your own life, and what makes you happy?

Diaz: I think the most important thing that I’ve found in my life is just my family and friends. Your wealth in life are the people that you get to love and who love you back, and all the experiences that you get to have with those people, throughout your life. Some come and some go. Some stay for a really long time, some leave quickly, some linger, and all of those experiences are the wealth of your soul. Those are the things that I’m most grateful for.

Breslin: I guess I’m grateful for my whole family and all of my friends, and everybody who has been there for me.

Vassilieva: I guess I’m grateful for the experiences that I’ve gone through. And, finding a niche that I feel comfortable in, so early on. Working with incredible people who become your family and become so supportive, and become a foundation. And, the people I’ve come across, the incredible stories that I’ve heard and the relationships that I’ve built.

Q: How did you feel the first time you looked in the mirror and saw yourself in this character?

Vassilieva: One day, when we were doing a screen test beforehand, we had just done one where it was the wig when the hair was falling out and it was the very beginning of it all, I remember I came into the trailer and I was hysterical. It was so hard to see yourself like that, and it was so hard to envision other people going through that, and that’s something that happens every single day. The two things that made that moment better were that Cammy and my mom were there, and they both fled in, when I was sitting in that chair, crying.

Diaz: It was so brave of her to do it. She was 15 when she did it. If anybody thinks back to when they were 15 years old, the last thing you want to do is shave your head and then your eyebrows. That’s when you’re getting a real sense of who you are. It’s so formidable. It was very brave for Sofia to do. It was amazing.

Vassilieva: And, I think that it let me see myself in a different light, being so new and pure, and having a completely fresh start. At 15, I wasn’t conformed to any idea of myself.

Q: Can you talk about working with Abigail and Sofia?

Diaz: Every scene with them. They are really amazing. They’re both extraordinary young women. What was amazing about working with Abby was that I realized you see her and you’re like, ‘Oh, she’s just a little girl,’ but she’s got so much power within her. I went up to her mother and said, ‘Your daughter is a warrior.’ She possesses something inside herself that is of the nature of a warrior, where she just knows how to push through. She can take all these things that are happening around her, that are these very adult, complicated, complex situations and ideas, and she’s able to somehow put something behind it with more strength than you see in most people. I was amazed by how strong she is. She’s just a powerhouse. Sofia is the most tender of tender. Everything is right there on the surface, at all times. You don’t want to fall into her depth too deep because you don’t where it’s going to end. She has such a depth of feeling and emotion. Both of these girls were so generous with me, as actors, every time.

Q: What was it like working with Nick Cassavetes, as a director?

Diaz: I think him being an actor himself, prior to being the director he is today, really helps his ability to communicate with his actors. If you ask Nick, he’ll say that he loves actors, and he really does. He’s incredibly generous with his actors. He gives so much of himself, particularly in this movie, because it’s a very personal thing. He’s gone through having a sick child, and so he knew, really intimately, what this experience was like and he was able to give that to all of us, and communicate it in a way that really went to the core and essence of the experience and the moment. He just has a wonderful sense of humanity and what it really is to feel things on the level that these people feel.

Breslin: My experience with Nick was that I met with him before we started filming, and he said, ‘Abby, I’m just going to tell you right now, this is going to be a work out and you’re going to have to do things in this movie that you probably don’t want to do,” and I was like, ‘Okay.’ And then, I got to set and I was like, ‘Wow, he wasn’t lying.’ But, I think that Nick is a really good director. He just really sets the tone for the day. If it was a scene that was a really hard scene for someone, he would just say, “Okay, you’ve got to be serious today. No joking around. This is a serious day.” But, that’s what makes it good because you’re really into it, from the beginning. You’re in that mind-set of the scene.

Vassilieva: I had been a little bit familiar with Nick’s work, before we met. And, last Christmas, I got very familiar with Nick’s father’s work. But, working with Nick was incredible on a level that I had never experienced. As Abby said, he was really, really great at setting a tone, but what was different for me was that it was very personal and very connected. He has that incredible ability to just tune into that right feeling. He can really get that essence. You can just look at him and feel it, and it’s this incredible energy that overpowers the set, that was phenomenal to me.

Breslin: And, also, something I noticed was that I felt very comfortable to go up to him and say, ‘Do you think that it would be all right, if I did it this way?’ He was very open to any contributions.

Vassilieva: Nick was this leader of all of us, and he would give everybody their place to play and create, whether it was the actors or the prop department, or anything like that. He chose the right people to surround himself with that were the best of their craft and could create on their own, and he gave everybody that space, and the opportunity and freedom to go with it where they wanted to.

Q: Did you meet cancer patients before filming this?

Vassilieva: I had met with cancer patients and doctors, and visited City of Hope. We all fell in love with a few incredible kids, including Nicole, Paul and Kelsey. They really were there, on a daily basis, to be a guide and a reference point, and lead the way.Sofia: Being in that condition was incredibly difficult. I don’t think there are words to describe it. And, I felt very isolated. Even though you’re the strength of the family and you’re telling them everything’s going to be okay, whether you’re here or not, you have to separate yourself from this world. You have to cut that off, and still be a part of it. So, in a way, I felt very alone. But, we did balance all of that nightmare that we were going through. There would be days when we’d have the most powerful scenes of the film and, when we were shooting, we would be going through that, over and over again. And then, we’d cut and we’d be telling ridiculous jokes that I still can’t bring up, to this day. So, the strength of the people around me gave me strength.

Q: Were there any scenes that were difficult to film because they differed from your own personal beliefs?

Diaz: I think this film succeeded, period, on what it set out to do, which is to make people feel. It’s successful in doing that. When I first read the script, I wasn’t worried about how to play somebody who other people might think is so unsympathetic. People might think, “How does this woman justify doing this to this other child?” The whole moral questioning about this really goes out the door. You think you’re going to really feel like she’s wrong, but you find, at the end, that you really cannot judge her. When I went to play her and understand her, I found that I can’t judge this woman. I don’t know what it’s like to have a child who’s dying. I don’t know what it feels like. All I know is that every parent that I’ve spoken to says the same thing. You do whatever it takes to save your child, period, whether it hurts another child of your own to do so. That is what you do. You jump off a cliff, you step in front of a train, and you do whatever you can to keep that child alive. That, at the end of it all, made it so much easier for me to just know that there’s no judgment in this movie, as far as I was concerned.    

Breslin: My character is put in a really hard situation, from the day that she’s born, where she is giving her sister blood and bone marrow, and all this stuff, and she doesn’t mind doing it. She’s happy to do it, but she’s put in this really hard, really tough position, in the movie, when her sister doesn’t want her to do it anymore. She has to make a decision about whether or not she proves her love for her sister, or she alienates herself from her family. That was one of the hard things. I remember, when I was first reading it, it was at night and my mom was like, “Okay, you’ve gotta go to bed now,” and I was like, “I don’t want to go to bed. I want to finish reading it.” And then, I got home the next day and started reading it and I was like, “Wow, why doesn’t this girl want to help her sister? That’s not very nice.” Then, when I finished it, I was like, “Wow!” It’s a very, very difficult situation to choose between sides. It’s hard to think about that.
                                               
Vassilieva: For me, the strength of Kate was to be able to let go and be the first one in the family to say, “Look, this is going to happen and it’s time. It’s been 14 years of being sick, and you need to let go.” Off camera, I’d be crying hysterically between every take. I’d be like, “I can’t do it.” and Nick would be like, “Okay, you have to do this,” and off we’d go. The journey for me was that balance of letting go, and then being scared to my wit’s end. We’re so separate and so together, at the same time. You feel for every single one of these characters. You can stand by every single one of them and understand why every single person is being the way they are. You can really get into their mind-set.

Breslin:  What I found interesting about the movie, when I read it, was that there really are no bad guys. Everybody’s doing what they think is right. They’re not trying to do anything wrong. They’re just doing what they think they should be doing.

Q: After making this film, have any of you thought about becoming advocates for the cause?

Vassilieva: I’m an honorary ambassador for Stand Up To Cancer. And, I recently took a trip to Memphis and visited the kids in the hospital, and really learned about this incredible facility, founded by Danny Thomas that really, surprisingly goes all the way. They don’t just care about the child. If you can’t cover your medical expenses, they’ll do it for you. They care about the family, to a point where, when you have bone marrow aspirations and you’re getting transplants and you’re in isolation for weeks on end, they create a room next door for your parents with a shower and a couch, and they really make sure that everybody’s okay. They don’t max out your insurance, so that when something else happens to a family member, you’re covered there too. The walls are covered in murals that were chosen by kids, and that they’ve created. That love and that detail can’t go unnoticed. That was really, really empowering for me, to see that and hear the stories of these kids.

Breslin: I went to a Stand Up To Cancer event, and I got to actually take calls and talk to some of the people who were making donations. It was a telethon.

Diaz: I think all the organizations that have come to light, in the last decade since we’ve found ourselves, as a society, riddled with cancer, are amazing. For me, a lot of my focus is going towards environmental thought of what’s creating this cancer for our society. What’s our overall health and what are we doing to cause this? We don’t know what causes it because it’s such a variable. There’s a variety of things that they think might be causing it. So, my focus is more on education of how we can be healthy overall, every day, and hopefully cut out some of these things that might be causing the cancer.